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* Thursday-Sunday: Galveston Food and Wine Festival. A variety of tastings and dinners plus a wine competition are scheduled for the Uptown Entertainment District culminating in The Grand Tasting at Saengerfest Park, 23rd and Strand, from 2 to 5 p.m. April 21; galveston.com/foodandwine.

Thursday-Sunday: Galveston Food and Wine Festival. A variety of tastings and dinners plus a wine competition are scheduled for the Uptown Entertainment District culminating in The Grand Tasting at Saengerfest Park, 23rd and Strand, from 2 to 5 p.m. April 21; galveston.com/foodandwine.

For details on upcoming wine dinners, tastings and classes, go to 29-95.com/wine. To have your events listed, send information to dale.robertson@chron.com. Follow Robertson on Twitter @sportywineguy.

I've made a vow.

Every time I'm feeling whiny, when the work load seems oppressive, the house is falling down around me and then that jury summons arrives in the mail, I'm going to take a very deep breath and think about Laura Catena.

Aside from being a terrific person, Catena - whose surname is synonymous with great Argentine wine - is a physician, winemaker and mother of three. (Catena's father, Nicolas Catena, has done as much as anyone to make the world understand the vast potential of those vineyards beneath the majestic Andean peaks.)

While attending medical school at Stanford University (after earning her undergraduate degree at Harvard), Laura had a standing mandate to use the American Express card he had given her to buy as much outstanding wine as she could in her spare time.

He'd visit every few months and they'd sample the famous bottles that she had collected, trying to decipher what could be done to make Bodega Catena Zapata's just as special.

Dorm room tastings

"We'd sit in my dorm room and taste all these famous wines," she recalls. "I was quite the wine snob back then, and pretty opinionated. But the one thing I'm most proud of is that dad wouldn't have released his first Malbec from the 1994 vintage if I hadn't told him, really insisted, that it was outstanding."

Her love of wine notwithstanding, however, she had "no intention of going into the business. It was just a hobby. My first love was medicine. I'd always wanted to be a doctor."

But she couldn't turn her back on what her father, a prominent economist himself, was striving to accomplish at the winery. Now 44, Laura serves as the company's managing director via the Internet from San Francisco, then works a full shift, usually 3 to 11 p.m., as an emergency room doctor.

And soon she'll move to a different hospital to focus on pediatric emergencies. Children are special to Laura. She has three of them, ranging in age from 13 to 3.

How on earth does she juggle so many plates?

Lots of checklists

"I do a lot of planning and make a lot of checklists," she said, adding that multitasking is part of her skill set. (You'll often see her doing pushups while 6-year-old Nicola is playing on a jungle gym.) "When I started having children, I found that I was completely overwhelmed. They need so much of your attention. As a student, I always had to make straight As. But, as an adult, I finally became accepting of the occasional B+.

"I have to make an A as a mother and an A as a doctor because nothing less is acceptable. But, as a cook, I'm now a C, and I used to be a great cook. I'm not very good about answering emails, either, and my house isn't as neat as it should be. You just have to prioritize and sometimes sacrifice.

"When my husband complains that he's too far down on my checklist, I'll move him up," she said. "But that's my biggest challenge - maybe the hardest thing for all couples with kids - making time for each other."

Fortunately, her husband, Dr. Daniel McDermott understands the demands of the medical profession and he's a near-scratch golfer, so he can amuse himself.

Catena once thought she needed to practice medicine to help people and have a relevant life.

Now she realizes how the winery's success impacts people.

"We employ entire families," she said, "and that's significant in a country that has experienced so much economic turmoil. Also, all our employees are committed to our vision of making Argentine wines that can compete with the best in world. I feel like working for my family is like working for my country."

The burgeoning tourism trade generated by global wine sales motivated Catena to take on another project. Last year she released Vino Argentino, the first comprehensive travelers' guide to Argentina's wine regions. The 2012 harvest was just wrapping up when we spoke, and she'd had multiple daily conversations with her father and the rest of the Catena team.

"It's amazing how, in agriculture, something bad can turn into something good," she said. "High winds during fruit set caused our production to be much lower, but the quality is just phenomenal with great concentration and ripeness. There was very little hail or frost. (The vintage) is going to be fantastic.

"In 20 years, we've gone from hearing people ask, 'Why are you charging so much?' to asking, 'Where can I buy this wine?' Today, people recognize the quality.